you can respond to anything in your own thread or the other thread.

Kakistocracy (a system of government which is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens).

A former top Mexican diplomat accused the Trump administration this week of using official diplomatic channels to funnel business to Donald Trump’s hotels.

Arturo Sarukhan, who served as Mexico’s ambassador to the United States from 2007 to 2013, tweeted on Tuesday that a former U.S. diplomat told him the U.S. State Department’s protocol emphasizes to world leaders that they should use Trump’s D.C. hotel for official visits.

Sarukhan’s tweet also uses the term “kakistocracy,” which means government by the worst people.

If the State Department is, in fact, helping Trump drive foreign governments’ business to his hotels, then it is complicit in a violation of the Constitution. The Constitution provides that no “person holding any office of profit or trust” under the United States may “without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”

Dozens of dictionaries published around the time of the Constitution’s drafting define the word “emolument” to include a “profit or gain” from a business transaction.

A foreign official’s choice to stay in a Trump hotel in order to ingratiate themselves with the President of the United States could also constitute a “present” bestowed upon Trump.

Sarukhan’s tweet, moreover, is only the latest evidence that Trump is using his presidency to drive business to his hotels. As ThinkProgress previously reported, “Trump’s new downtown D.C. hotel has hosted embassy events for Azerbaijan and Kuwait, who switched to the Trump hotel from their original booking at the Four Seasons. The hotel hosted an annual conference sponsored by the Turkish state last month?—?a conference that in previous years was habitually held at the Ritz Carlton. And, since Trump’s election, a Saudi-backed lobbying campaign spent around $270,000 at the hotel for lodging and catering costs.”

Never mind "the Rusher thing," why isn't this enough to dump Trump?

Very entertaining read here from Vanity Fair's Gabe Sherman on the current state of the White House.

Ha, speaking of kakistocracy, I hadn't seen this when I posted above.

SO GREAT!

when trump called Pap a liar it might go into mueller's treasure chest as more obstruction...it isnt a court case yet against trump and nothing is public about what Pap has to say about the trumps...it can be seen as intimidation....probably will.

Trump called the Failing New York Times™ to let them know he ain't angry at nobody, and he ain't under investigation, and his poll numbers are fantastic (although he didn't cite any specific polls and "an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday put Mr. Trump’s approval rating at 38 percent — the lowest for the survey since February, when he was a month into his presidency").

AKA Everything's fine!

1987 list is a tough one to get down to 10......a lot of diverse albums......ive whittled it down to 32 so far........i do expect 10,000 maniacs and g. harrison to make the cut.

personally, i feel exhaustion from the trump administration.....it feels like the entire country is under attack....his own supporters gets attacked without even realizing it....the country is fighting for survival......if his tax plan passes as it is it will do major damage to the middle class and under...........and core values....is there any reason to believe that his tax plans are not for his personal gain ? and his peers........
the worst guy in congress is nunes.
the biggest disappointment is lindsey graham....it is a shame that he and mccain are not on the same page.

Bernie was definitely jobbed..at first i wasn't going to vote at all until it became too obvious that i had to vote for Hilary.
the jobbing of bernie im sure deflected a lot of votes to gary johnson and jill stein.....that is on shultz.

I wonder how far Bernie would have gotten if he'd run as an independent? I know he got exposure from the Dem debates, but the DNC always treated him as an interloper. Probably Trump would have won even more states -- Bernie would have taken more votes from Hillary than him. But a Trump vs. Bernie election (with no Hillary at all), that would have been interesting.

i agree.....bernie would have beaten trump but 3 way race would have gotten trump in.

i heard schumer speak yesterday...i never heard anyone in congress before speak with such unhidden deep disdain for trump before...there was poison venom in the air.....the tax bill has got to be the main thing left keeping some republicans from separating themselves from trump......it is going to be a rocky road to getting a bill passed........

Sam Clovis, linked to Russia inquiry, drops nomination for agriculture post

Senator Patrick Leahy of the Senate agriculture committee said Clovis was “almost a comically bad nominee, even for this administration”.

He added: “He is inarguably unqualified, and he is wrong on almost every major issue relevant to the chief scientist post to which he was nominated. His nomination is all too typical of the anti-science agenda and the know-nothingism pushed by President Trump and his administration.”

But he added that Clovis had not withdrawn his name because of this.

“His nomination was withdrawn because we learned on Monday that last year Mr Clovis, while serving as the co-chairman for the national Trump campaign, gave the green light to George Papadopolous’ attempts to collude with Russian operatives and obtain stolen emails from the Clinton campaign. Mr Clovis’ nomination was only withdrawn because that would certainly have been a topic during his upcoming testimony, under oath, before the Senate agriculture committee.

Another domino down!